February 11, 2013

The affordable Raspberry Pi microcomputer just got even more affordable: the slated $25 Model A Raspberry Pi board has now gone on sale in Europe. The Raspberry Pi Foundation, which created the Pi with the mission to get more kids learning to code, said sales are being restricted to Europe initially but will be opened up to the rest of the world “very soon”. The Foundation’s Pi distributors, RS Components and Premier Farnell/element14, are both selling the board. The Model A pie is $10 cheaper than the $35 Model B, which has sold more than a million to date (including 15,000 bought by Google to give away to U.K. schoolkids). Being cheaper, Model A is slightly stripped back — there’s no Ethernet, only one USB port and just 256MB RAM (rather than 512MB). Model A also consumes around a third less power than Model B — making it suited to projects powered by a battery or solar cells. The board will still run XBMC, according to the Foundation — so can also be used to make a $25 media centre.